CT Only: A Good Introductory Adventure to CT?

[Supplement Four]

My folder on starports has stuff about StarTown and some starport layouts etc. I've forgotten where I got this Supplement STP-002: Starports! but its awesome and has a lot of good information in it.

IIRC, that's Rob's work.

And, I like it quite a bit, too.

 

[aramis]

I can't see "Exit Visa" as a starter adventure. More like something to be thrown into the middle of a campaign for a change of pace.

It's a lousy first adventure for players; it's a passable first one to GM, however, as it introduces a bunch of different ways to roll the dice.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ghost, I think you are right about the basic tenor of the published CT adventures, and that's not a bad thing. It makes the answer to the players question "What do we do here?" very easy to answer, because the situation is familiar.
I have read sci-fi with giant monsters and time travel (Doctor Who!) but my favorite author is Piper, who centered his stories around humans and their very familiar struggles. The sci-fi trappings were just that, trappings to give the story flavor while keeping the focus on the human element. Any of the CT adventures can be made exciting by adding sci-fi tropes, or by adding a human element that gets the players attention.
My game group just finished Death Station recently, and I only changed some of the background (illegal street drug lab instead of research station). The enigma of a deserted space station kept my players searching and asking 'why'? The drugged-out survivors scared them and were an additional motivator to solve the mystery.
I read recently on a blog somewhere that the published CT adventures were intended to be a setting/framework for the referee to build upon and make their own. So whether you add slimy aliens, or human adversaries, or a harsh and hostile environment, give the players something that makes them care about the adventure, and everyone wins.

Thanks Bob

Yeah, it's a realization I came to maybe a year back, but it didn't really click with me until recently. I shrug at it. I now understand why there weren't a whole host of things from all sorts of sci-fi sources in the official adventures. Oh well.

It's not a big deal to me because I happen to be a law and order kind of guy, but I do get a little exasperated by having to peel back layers to reveal "what's really going on" in media of all forms, games and Traveller included. I'm just sorry Traveller has that tinge to it, but I've enjoyed it enough to let it be.

Still; when all that is said and done, I'm still of the opinion that Traveller, as a name brand, can withstand and benefit from some real classic sci-fi offering, and not just "crime and/or geo-political scenario-X in a futuristic setting".

Ironically enough I've always wanted to write really excellent military sci-fi, but others are far more coherent and capable than I ever will be, so currently I'm writing more traditional sci-fi that will, I hope, really challenge players but without being impossible, and hopefully will be highly entertaining as well.

I never did much Dungeons and Dragons, but I do understand the draw to it; adventure. For me, I shied away from the fantasy setting, and gravitated towards the sci-fi setting because I was drawn to technology and bizzare and strange scientific phenomenon in sci-fi. So when Traveller came about, even though it had better thought out rules and more grounded setting, it seemed rather dry, but with a massive potential for really excellent adventures.

I think part of the reason Traveller has endured, apart from possibly being a training tool fr detectives, is that because it is a bare bones setting, people can slap their flavor on top of whatever it is the players are challenged with.

This is why in past years I've brought up ridiculous threads like Kaiju in Traveller, or Mechas in Traveller, or "space monsters" in Traveller, and challenging other posters with either anecdotes or ideas of what happened(s) with you take your fire team up against a Godzilla like monster. That's the stuff legends are made of, and that's part of Traveller, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Rad Bradbury, etc. and all the other greats give to you and me.

Now...shameless plug time. I urge everyone to purchase a PDF of both "The Subterranean Oceans of Argos Prime" and "Hell's Paradise" The second being a most excellent introductory adventure.

 

[Vargas]

Shadows and Across the Bright Face were both originally convention adventures. If you think of them as being map-centric adventure modules that were common to RPGs of the day and simple adventures intended to introduce convention goers to the game, then they make a lot of sense.

 

[Supplement Four]

Shadows and Across the Bright Face were both originally convention adventures. If you think of them as being map-centric adventure modules that were common to RPGs of the day and simple adventures intended to introduce convention goers to the game, then they make a lot of sense.

I haven't seen this type of adventure pop up in modern games, much. Pure sandbox exploration can be quite fun.

I remember the first D&D adventure I ran as DM, The Secret of Bone Hill. It's a big sandbox. If the players wonder off into the woods, there's plenty out there for them to find plus the random encounters that can happen at the roll of a die.

Lots of fun.

Requires an experienced games master, though. It takes someone very comfortable with the game mechanics and familiar with the adventure terrain to be able to run one of these competently.

Paizo released an Adventure Path for Pathfinder (series of linked adventures) recently that went back to these types of games. The entire campaign is set in the wild lands, and the players are to explore and map the place. I haven't played it, but it looks like a lot of fun.

 

[aramis]

I haven't seen this type of adventure pop up in modern games, much.

You haven't been looking in the right places, then.

Cubicle 7's The One Ring makes extensive use of hex-gridded maps in the overland movement rules. It's not old-school "sandbox" by any stretch — in fact, it's anti-sandbox and very non-OSR — but it's reusing the old mapped movement as a means of making Tolkien's travel scenes part of Tolkienian RPG play.

And then there's the whole OSR movement...

 

[Golan2072]

I haven't seen this type of adventure pop up in modern games, much. Pure sandbox exploration can be quite funץ

Look HERE. This is a B/X-D&D-inspired game where sandbox play is the mainstay up to and including setting up domains and organizations in the sandbox if you wish to.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Shadows and Across the Bright Face were both originally convention adventures. If you think of them as being map-centric adventure modules that were common to RPGs of the day and simple adventures intended to introduce convention goers to the game, then they make a lot of sense.

That does explain a great deal.

 

[manley_t]

Death Station done the Firefly way.

Ship and crew hired/forced by shady dealer to transport a group of 4 scientists to a research station orbiting a nearby gas giant.

The 4 scientists are actually mercs who have the mission to cleanse all traces of a megacorps dodgy research.

The trip to the gas giant can be a fun role playing experience as the PCs and the scientists rub shoulders.

At the station there is the task of getting on board the rotating lab ship.

The merc team goes in - they die/are cyborgisised/taken over by alien parasites/hunted for sport/gift their bodies to great Cthulhu.

The PCs now have a choice - run away or go in themselves to kill the monsters and take the loot.

For real suspense do not reveal what happens to the merc team, just suggest nasty things - your players will often imagine far worse than you.

I've been running my 16 year old and his friends in pathfinder games. I finally him convinced (he hates sci-fi) to let me run a one-shot Traveller game. I'm looking Book 1, 2 & 3 only. My thought was to use the old Intruder game (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2613/intruder) as the one shot, prob about 4 hours. So I came here seeing if anyone did stats for the alien movie. And I found this thread and your post and was reminded of Death Station (yep, I've got that one!) and can't believe I didn't think of that!

So, I'll be running a death station one-shot for the boys and we'll see if I can get them hooked.

I plan on using the char gen rules in B1 as is! No fudging, so failed survival roll means dead character.

Wish me luck!

 

[manley_t]

I've always been leery of running "Exit Visa"/"Stranded on Arden" because it's really just an exercise in bureaucracy.

I'm very interested in other ways the CT adventures can be jazzed up so please keep the ideas coming.

well, I'm working up the old Task Force Game "Intruder" (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2613/intruder) as a one shot for my 16 year old son and his group of friends I've been running in Pathfinder for quite some time now. It's very Alien~esque -- but the interesting thing is none of these boys have seen that movie or it's franchise.

A thing I have planned to rectify for my son here in the not too distant future.

 

[Golan2072]

well, I'm working up the old Task Force Game "Intruder" (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2613/intruder) as a one shot for my 16 year old son and his group of friends I've been running in Pathfinder for quite some time now. It's very Alien~esque -- but the interesting thing is none of these boys have seen that movie or it's franchise.

A thing I have planned to rectify for my son here in the not too distant future.

I'll definitely run this!

 

[nats]

So I'm looking for a fun-packed Traveller adventure I can run in 3.5 hours to a group of 2-4 players who are unfamiliar with Traveller, in order to introduce them to the game. What do you recommend? I have both the CT CD and the JTAS CD, as well as a few newer MGT adventures, all in PDF, so I have a lot to choose from.

Good adventures are Safari Ship (add more creatures and perhaps a sea trip) , Marooned (my personal favourite), Across the Bright Face, Death Station (with zombies whats not to love), and Chamax Plague (ie Starship Troopers).

But for me the best Traveller will always be just having the characters in a starport bar at the start of the adventure, getting embroiled in a good investigation plot somehow - with an air/raft chase, a city shootout and a final rescue attempt! 76 Patrons has some great hooks to get you thinking, but some good preparation is your friend.

 

[gregcaires]

A Campaign from the Classics (old & new)

I've been running a campaign for my son and his 8th/9th grade friends since September.

We started with Across the Bright Face, then went aboard the Death Station, then experienced One Crowded Hour (I greatly enjoy that module -- CT vibe with modern storytelling/gameplaying design).

Soon we'll be doing a Beltstrike/Expedition to Zhodane mashup where they start at Koenig's Rock (GREAT maps!) and then use the Utoland Gazette want-ads to find some jobs, get shanghaied and forced to work as Belters before discovering the Rock & Pebble. At that point its up to the boys to decide whether to RPG the last 5 minutes of "Unforgiven" or turn the other cheek.

Next stop will be Horde, and then I'm debating running a variant of The Traveller Adventure campaign, with linkages to Kinunir, Night of Conquest, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, and Secret of the Ancients (has anyone played the updated version published by Mongoose?).

I'm also tempted to run Skyrig but as its a similar "dungeon crawl" to Death Station I feel we need to put some distance between the two adventures.

I haven't studied them yet but I will consider the "Sky Raider" trilogy and perhaps the other Keith Brothers classics like "Seven Pillars" or "Duneraiders"?

Does anyone have any other "must run" adventures to suggest from other "expanded universe" sources -- Freelance Traveller, White Dwarf, Dragon magazine, etc.

 

[mike wightman]

MgT Secret of the Ancients is a vast improvement on the original.

 

[san*klass]

I've never found a group that found Shadows boring. I've had groups that found it too hard, groups that hated being under the time clock before the suits fail, and it's TPK'd 3 parties without suit failure... (well, the fall down the shaft would have been fatal without accounting for the suit failure upon impact.)

I found the DGP-CT/MT Task system being used really adds a lot to this adventure. (I've been using it with CT since I discovered TD, which was with issue 8.) Why? Mishaps. Things going wrong, and rules for fixing them. And the real threat that any mishap is lethal on the world in question.

 

[Hairy Jim DeGriz]

Thanks for pulling this thread out of a TARDIS.

 

[Timerover51]

I guess I have always been partial to Mission on Mithril.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Thanks for pulling this thread out of a TARDIS.

No kidding. 9 years old. Thread Necromancy of the year.

 

[Vargr Breath]

I wonder what adventure Golan2072 picked all those years ago. And if he was going to do it all over again if he would pick the same one.

 

[Timerover51]

I wonder what adventure Golan2072 picked all those years ago. And if he was going to do it all over again if he would pick the same one.

Send him a message and find out. He was active as of Wednesday.